Why is Anti-Mage Suddenly Relevant?

Anti-Mage is currently in top15 most successful heroes in 5k games with a healthy pick rate of almost 8%. For a hero many consider to be weak in lane, unfit for the meta and a huge gamble in most games, these stats are definitely surprising. So why is he suddenly relevant, despite receiving no significant buffs for more than 4 months?

Shifting Tides

Despite no significant changes to the actual balance of the game, meta still evolves. It is a natural process and a sign of a healthy game. Once players at TI started figuring out they can be a little bit more greedy and still come out on top, despite losing some of their lanes, the trend was immediately caught by high level pub players and eventually trickled down to all matches.

Greed is still punishable, but it isn’t as punishable as people assumed it to be. That is how we got Spectre back at one point and how offlane dual lanes were often filled with what essentially was a third carry. Anti-Mage is a greedy hero, but he is also great at punishing greedy heroes of the enemy, very similar to previously popular Alchemist.

Given equal lane pressure, Anti-Mage will get online much faster, at least in terms of his farming capabilities. From this point onward it is the same old story of split-pushing, farming up and only coming for a clean-up. This, however, proved to be a very successful gameplan in a meta, where players generally like to push their greed as much as they can, without losing the game outright.

Not so weak in lane

Anti-Mage being weak in lane is not necessarily a myth, but his weaknesses are certainly exaggerated. He does very little in a tri-lane vs. tri-lane, but against a dual lane he is actually great at trading hits. Mana Break is a very strong lane stabilizer and experienced Anti-Mage players know how to push their hero to the limits.

We often see Anti-Mages go for seemingly suicidal auto-attack trades, only to blink out later and salve up. Most of the time, if the enemy salve is also forced, it means that in 10 seconds both heroes are going to be back in lane with full health, but now the enemy doesn’t have access to their abilities.

Anti-Mage doesn’t really have anything to offer in terms of spells, at least in lane, so it is definitely a net win for him—both him and his opponent are pretty much glorified creeps who default to farming and creep contesting. This is a good lane state for Anti-Mage and a very bad one for any enemy, who wants to play active and apply pressure.

On top of it, all of his regeneration is generally slightly more effective, since not only does he have a decent amount of armor, but he can also take an early point in Spell Shield to make the enemy mana a lot less efficient.

Good vs. Greed

Anti-Mage is definitely known for his prowess against Intelligence heroes. Bad positioning can often result in half the enemy team being wiped with a single spell, while previously discussed Mana Break will have a lot more mana to work with, hence will apply the extra damage for longer.

Necrophos, Storm Spirit, Invoker and Zeus are all among the top15 most played heroes in the game in the 5k+ bracket, with almost 20% pick rate each. Add to them Grimstroke and Silencer in the support positions and you can see how Anti-Mage can actually be relevant not only from the 10th pick position. He will often either take away the opportunity for the enemy to play their comfort hero, or will be a great counter.

Against many other heroes in the top15, Anti-Mage might not be the best predator, but he definitely isn’t a prey either: both Ursa and Tiny will have trouble dealing with Anti-Mage by the end of the laning stage, while Anti-Mage outscales both of them in a core position.

Building for success

Despite all the changes to the game, Anti-Mage build is as static as it has always been: you want your early Ring of Health in lane, since it is great for keeping your alive and is very effective on you, courtesy of high armor and magic resistance. You want you small filler item, be it Ring of Aquila or Magic Wand for early stats. You need your Power Treads and then immediately go for Battlefury.

This build, after being tested for almost a decade, is more or less non-negotiable. There are alteration every now and then, with the build order being switched once in a while, but most high level players default to it for a reason. You need every bit of early stats to secure your life pre-Battlefury, and you need Battlefury to do exactly what meta needs Anti-Mage to do: get ahead of greedier opponents and punish them for not applying enough pressure on you.

Interestingly, talents for the hero are also pretty static, with +20 AS, +400 Blink Cast Range, -2.5 s. Blink Cooldown being picked in 90% of cases. While level 15 and 20 talents are more or less self-explanatory and their alternatives aren’t particularly consistent, the +20 AS is a weird one.

Yes, it helps a lot with the farming speed and will probably shave off a couple of minutes from the Battlefury+PT to 6-slotted progression, but +10 Strength definitely shouldn’t be overlooked. On a hero with so much resistance, extra 180 health can go a very long way.

Closing thoughts

We wanted to highlight for a very particular reason: to have a proof that meta is still evolving and it is too early to call it completely figured out. Our regular caveat of this applying to core heroes only is still intact, but at the very least 60% of the player base shouldn’t have too many reasons to complain. There are still ways to fit in heroes you might like and there are still reasons to pick off-meta.

For support players our only advice would be to be patient and wait for the next patch, which might make more than 5 heroes in the pool viable. Alternatively you can still spam Grimstroke, who remains pretty powerful, or try position four Anti-Mage, if you feel like going for the extra tilt.

Congratz to our beloved dotabuff and Kawaiisocks for ruining a hero that’s in perfect state. When people start to think AM is good , retards will start 1st picking AM and people who can’t play AM will start picking him (I’ll just pick AM and farm 6 slot in jungle for 30 mins LOL) . AM has high winrate because people only pick him as a situational 4/5th pick on a perfect scenario ,nothing like old TB/Spectre which you can 1st pick in pro games.

how to play am :
1st pick AM
Lose in lane
Flame support for not warding eventhough there is literally 2 wards that cover most spot on his lane
Supports aren't allowed to do pulling eventhough the creep equilibrium already broken to enemy favor and get flamed for leeching XP
Eventhough the supports can't do anything coz enemy dual lanes and if he try to zone them, AM would still meditating at the creep trying to last hit and even if AM blinked to help, AM cant do anything because of his skill build.
Get battlefury and basic boot/ PT at 17 mins - 22 mins into the game.
Lose if enemy pushed within 25 minutes into the game (which is mostly what I experienced when have teammate am)
Win if enemy can't penetrate high ground and AM afk-farming + rat for 25 mins - 30 mins and push after he become 6-slotted.

I absolutely hate this hero... so annoying both to his team and his enemies.
His team need to deal disadvantageous war because AM was never there while
the enemies need to deal with pesky blinks and bullshit manaburn and magic resistance

or perhaps the most common thing --- Am farm all times only to get oneshotted by PA with deso basher bkb

????
Blink range is NOT an obvious choice. Do dotabuff editors even check the stats of the hero? You can check overall stats of talents right HERE on website, as well as you can look into guides on AM page to see high-mmr players trends. And this choice is not straightforward at all. In fact, agility is picked more than blink range.
This really undermines my perception of the following dotabuff articles.

If you look to the right side of the page you'll see that the blink range is currently beating out the agi in both categories in the past 7 days, which is the timeframe this article is focusing on, save for Wednesday which has barely started in the States. Some clarification would be appreciated as to the four talents listed as having 90% pick rate, but going out on a limb here, it could be an over-exaggeration to prove a point. It's also worth noting that these articles usually focus on high mmr brackets and pros, and as far as I could tell, the talent page doesn't break the statistics up into brackets, instead lumping the first timers in with Xboct. It's also difficult to justify an argument based on 20 cherry-picked games, so really what I'm saying is that I would love a lot more levels of detail, find that middle ground that tells the right story behind the claims of this article.

I see you have more than a couple games with AM, do you prefer the agi/ is this why you picked this specific piece to contest?

I think this is the worst article I've seen on Dotabuff in a long time.

There was absolutely no need to write an article on a hero who has just been doing the same old crap for years. There's no point in writing this... and the blink range talent isn't even a dominating choice. The agility talent is. The only time I see that picked is up against a Bloodseeker because you can then safely blink away from him while Ruptured since the range exceeds the 1300 cap. Which, by the way, is complete bull shit because he is the ONLY hero who can even do that (besides maybe QoP, I'm not entirely sure).

funny that this gets posted the day after I had a brutal 80 minute loss to an antimage. Not blaming the hero, I definitely could have played better, but feel he should not be so strong so late. I always viewed him as an alch type carry, not the hardest late game hero, but will get 6 slotted before most carries

The reason why the AS talent is preferred, is because it fastens your farming abilities. If you are ganked, you will die eitherway +180 hp or not, and for you it is important to hit your core items as fast as possible.

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